Curt Benson visited MLive’s Grand Rapids hub Thursday, March 27, to talk about what’s next in the case over the state’s 10-year-old, voter-approved law prohibiting same-sex marriage. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is appealing, and gay marriages are currently on hold.

Bans in several other U.S. states also are in court.

“To a certain extent, the federal courts reflect social attitudes,” said Benson, a Cooley Law School professor. “Fifty years ago, nobody was filing these lawsuits because everybody took homosexual conduct to be sinful.

“What has changed? Society’s mores and attitudes. Public attitude is causing these challenges to what before was a social convention. (My 20-something children) don’t even pay attention to this because they’re like ‘Whatever. Who cares?’”

Here are some other things Benson said about the case:

• The case will drag on for at least a year

“There’s no case before the (Supreme) Court at the moment. Those (federal appeals court) decisions won’t probably come out until the end of this summer (and then it will go to the Supreme Court). I don’t see physically how it can get done before summer 2015.

“(The court system is saying) ‘You’ve gone 235 years under the Constitution without same-sex marriage. You can wait another year and a half.’”

• Federal District Judge Bernard Friedman made his ruling at 5 p.m. on a Friday so county clerks’ offices could have a couple days to prepare for issuing marriage licenses.

“It’s because the clerks’ offices had closed (for the week). I think he was probably quite surprised, as I was, when all of a sudden four county clerks open up at 9 a.m. (Saturday). They’re very efficient when it comes to same-sex marriage. They really swung into action.”

• Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has no choice but to appeal Friedman’s ruling.

“It’s all the rage politically now for these ‘courageous’ attorney generals to say ‘I’m not going to defend this (state ban on gay marriage).’ So the attorney generals are going to decide which laws they’re going to enforce and which laws they’re not going to enforce? That’s giving attorney generals veto power.

“I think it’s appalling that people are encouraging the attorney general to pick and choose which provisions of Michigan law he chooses to enforce.”

• Schuette has no case to make against same-sex marriage.

“When you start getting doctrinaire, then you get to the point where you’re establishing religion. There was a social construct (that past courts heeded). When those attitudes start changing and the government wants to keep enforcing those laws, they have to come up with a secular argument. He couldn’t say ‘The Bible says,’ so he said ‘It’s tradition.’

“I don’t think there is an argument.”

• For most people, the impact of gay marriage will be symbolic.

“We’re talking about a pretty small percentage of our population (that would enter into same-sex marriages). It won’t have much of a practical impact. It’s going to have a tremendous societal impact on how we view the world and how we view marriage.

“This is a seismic shift in how we do marriage. It’s going to have a psychological effect.”